An Important Decision

NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED
October 13, 1949

Dean Griswold's announcement of Sunday last is one of momentous importance to the University's educational policy. It is only the crassest gynophobe who will carp at the decision contained therein--namely, to allow "a small number of unusually qualified girls" into the Law School next autumn. The enlightened will remember, with Dean Griswold, that "women have come a long way since they were first admitted to the American Bar Association in 1918," and further, that "many now serve with distinction on the bench and at the bar."

The decision has not been taken in haste. On the contrary, the Harvard Law School is one of the last in the nation to make the move. Only a few Jesuit Law Schools still pursue a similar course. Neither have the sage administrators of Langdell Hall been extremists among the University's faculty, for the Law School is the last of the Graduate schools to open its portals to the gentler sex.

There are many problems which yet remain to be overcome. The threat to peace of the American home posed by even a relatively small number of women trained in litigation is an imponderable which must weigh heavily on our minds. The picture of a breakfast table transformed into a court room, with husband and wife engaged in bitter legal debate over the eggcups, is almost too frightful to conceive. But, in spite of the great danger involved, the fair-minded observer must conclude that the Law School's step has been well taken. Joint Instruction--never must the word "co-education" sully that happy arrangement--now envelopes the entire Yard in its embrace. Only the Lamont Library remains the final bastion of monasticism, and perhaps our great-grandchildren may live to see even its barriers fall.